Albuquerque, New Mexico. 6 March, 2014: Optomec, Inc., a global leader in 3D Printing for production applications, announced today that the company was awarded a new US patent, entitled Miniature Aerosol Jet and Aerosol Jet Array, patent # 8,640,975. The patent provides protection for a miniaturized Aerosol Jet print head geometry that is significantly smaller, lighter weight and lower cost than preceding generations. This new design is enabling for a range of production applications, such as printing 3D conformal electronics onto large structures in location, and printing electronics into hard to reach places such as recesses and cavities. The patent also includes provisions for multiplexing the miniaturized print head geometry within linear arrays or custom arrangements for high-volume production scale-up.

Dr. Mike Renn, Optomec Chief Technology Officer, states “The miniaturized Aerosol Jet print head can be used for many applications. As a linear array using a single material, it is a means for increasing throughput with simple parallel processing for high volume applications, such as printed touch screen displays. However, the array doesn’t have to be linear; custom placement of multiple print heads for a specific application is also an option. Looking into the future, Aerosol Jet could print different materials from each miniaturized print head in the array. In this case, Aerosol Jet Printers could produce complex multi-material, multi-layered devices such as transistors, capacitors, sensors, and resistors, on a single system.”

Optomec Aerosol Jet Printers are used to directly print functional electronic circuitry and components onto low-temperature, non-planar substrates, without the need for masks, screens, or plating. The Aerosol Jet process utilizes an innovative aerodynamic focusing technique to collimate a dense mist of material-laden micro droplets into a tightly controlled beam to print features as small as 10 microns or as large as several millimeters in a single pass. For more information on Aerosol Jet printing, click here.

Optomec is a privately-held, rapidly growing supplier of Additive Manufacturing systems. Optomec patented Aerosol Jet Systems for printed electronics and LENS 3D Printers for metal components are used by industry to reduce product cost and improve performance. Together, these unique printing solutions work with the broadest spectrum of functional materials, ranging from electronic inks to structural metals and even biological matter. Optomec has more than 150 marquee customers around the world, targeting production applications in the Electronics, Energy, Life Sciences and Aerospace industries.

Aerosol Jet is a registered trademark of Optomec, Inc. LENS (Laser Engineered Net Shaping) is a registered trademark of Sandia National Laboratories